Day 8: Columbia, SC

South Carolina! Today we were in THREE different states, sort of a celebration of the end of the first week of traveling.

Although our morning was supposed to start later than most other mornings, we were awakened around 5 a.m. to the loud cracks of thunder! Rain poured down outside, and we counted down "one-one-thousand, two-one-thousand..." to see how far the lightening was away from us. The distance ranged from one to five miles away. But while it was loud and scary, we were able to fall back asleep.

We started the morning in Tennessee where we slept in and ate breakfast at the Atrium. I got pecan pancakes which were delicious and Leah had pancakes and an egg and some bacon which I ate. Very happy, we're going to have left overs for breakfast tomorrow morning because we are pretty sick of hotel breakfasts (which are free and therefore terribly similar in every hotel).

After that we did the Gatlinburg Art and Craft Trail, where we got some candy, neat trinkets and art, and some soap (hotel soap makes my skin feel waxy, so real soap will be a nice change).

Then we made our way to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park where we stuck to the main road and occasionally stopped by the side of the road in pull-outs to look at the wondrous nature around us. There was a gorgeous river running along side the road that was full thanks to the thunderstorm the night before. We stopped by Chimney Top trail for a quick picnic in the car (Leah didn't want to do anything too nature-y because of the bugs) where we ate leftover pizza and Coca-Colas. We took a quick hike down to the river where we saw a small waterfall and some beautiful butterflies. Then we hiked back up to the car and continued driving.

While in the park, we crossed the state line into North Carolina up by Newfound Gap and we stopped by the lookout to see over the edge of the highest part of our journey. From the lookout, we could see the Tennessee side of the mountain and the North Carolina side. The clouds in the distance really did appear to be smoky. As we made our way back to the car, Leah got bit by a bug that had the luck of finding the one spot on her foot where she didn't get bug spray and the bug got caught inside of her sock, so it bit her a total of three times before she ran back to the car to apply first-aid ointment. So that was our bug adventure. We both got bit more than that, but that was definitely the most memorable.

Leaving the park, we drove through the Cherokee reservation and made our way to Asheville, NC, so we could taste some their famous local beer. We stopped at Westville (West Asheville) Pub and had dinner and beer, then walked around West Asheville for awhile, bought some necessities at Ingles (a grocery store) and made our way back to the car. After that Leah drove us down to Columbia, the capitol of South Carolina, where we pulled into our hotel for the night.

Tomorrow will be another early day as we head to Charleston, Fort Sumter, Kitty Hawk, and make our way back up to North Carolina. It should be another hot, humid, probably awful weather sort of day.

We will also be seeing the Atlantic Ocean for the first time!

Good night, <3 Al